US-India strategic partnership relations upgraded
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Apparently, Obama's shower of praise for India is by no means for the sake of mere praise, or simply showing an ideological intimacy. Rather, he is trying to start a brand new bilateral cooperation to deal with international challenges.
"Beyond Asia, as the world's largest multiethnic democracy and as one of the world's fastest-growing economies and as a member of the G-20, India will play a pivotal role in meeting the major challenges we face today," Obama noted.
"I believe that the relationship between the United States and India will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. "
Singh looked satisfied with his talks with Obama. "In our discussions today, we reaffirmed the importance of our relationship and decided on future steps to enhance our strategic partnership. We have agreed to further intensify our trade, investment and economic cooperation in a way that creates jobs and prosperity in both our two countries and stimulates global economic recovery."
In addition, the two sides also "agreed to a series of important new efforts, including a clean energy initiative that will create jobs and improve people's access to cleaner, more affordable energy; a green partnership to reduce poverty through sustainable and equitable development; and a historic effort to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels," according to Obama.
Different emphases
The latest US-India summit is fruitful. Thanks to Singh's visit to Washington, the governments of the two countries signed a series of memoranda of understandings, covering the fields of global security and countering terrorism, green partnership, economic trade and agriculture, education and health.
However, while Obama and Singh were enjoying positive results of their talks, the two leaders also tried to demonstrate in some way their own concerns in future bilateral cooperation.
"It is in our strategic interests, in our national security interests, to make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas. We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks. And Afghanistan's stability is important to that process," Obama said.
Instead of talking much about anti-terrorism, which was believed to be one of major issues in US-India summit, Singh, who vowed to eradicate violent extremism, seemed to be demanding for more concrete cooperation with Washington.
"Our strategic partnership should facilitate transfer of high technologies to India. The lifting of US export controls on high-technology exports to India will open vast opportunities for joint research and development efforts," Singh said of India-US cooperation.
In terms of environment protection, "I underline India's desire to benefit from clean and energy-efficient technologies from the United States. Our partnership will contribute to global efforts to combat climate change and achieve energy security," the Indian prime minister added.
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